From: "Roy C. Lackey" 
Subject: Re: (urth) The Claw
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 14:21:05 -0600

Dan'l quoted:
> It also didn't work for Jonas. Sev couldn't even restore him
> to the condition he had been in before he got zapped, much
> less reach back in time to restore him to the way he was
> before his ship crashed. Didn't work for Jolenta, either,
> though Sev had known her both before she was bitten and
> before she was Jolenta.

and wrote:
>>I seem to recall some discussion of this in the past ... but ...
it seems to me that the common factor between Jonas and Jolenta
-- aside from their names beginning with the syllable "Jo" --
would consist in their both having an artificial nature (though
Jolenta _begins_ as a natural person, Doctor T. artifically
enhances her ... sort of the Pamela Anderson of posthistory).

>>Perhaps the Claw (or Severian) cannot heal artificial persons,
but only natural persons ...,<<

I, too, recall such discussion, and the artificiality factor may be valid
for the failures. What I was addressing, however, was the contention that
the Claw worked by reaching back in time to a point before the pending
problem. If the Claw's power was a function of time, why should the presence
of prosthetics present a problem? Would it not work for a man with a wooden
leg who was wounded woefully by a weapon?

-Roy


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